Storytelling, for an actor, is the intentional choice of how you present what you are doing in order to maximize its dramatic effect.  This is the first of don’t know how many parts.  I’ll write about specific ways to think in terms of story presentation when it seems appropriate.

If drama is conflict and conflict is a fight, you need to understand what kind of battle you’re in.  Is it a boxing match or a chess match?  A swordfight or arm wrestling?  Ping pong or tennis?

The nature of each of these battles is going to be slightly different.  Ping pong is very quick; tennis is slower and involves more slight of hand.  Arm wrestling is continuous energy trying to force your will on your opponent and resisting his; a chess game allows you to reconsider your strategy at any point.  A swordfight can be a swashbuckling Three Musketeers’ event, or it can be Olympic fencing, where a touch in the right spot wins you a point.

The kind of battle you’re fighting determines the sort of strategies you can use.  In tennis, for instance, you can slice the ball at the last minute, so your opponent doesn’t see it coming.  You can lob it over his head.  You can gently drop the ball just over the net or smash it down on your opponent’s side of the court so that it jumps so high it is impossible for him to touch it.

Can you see how you might use this analogy in a play?  Let’s say you’re playing a scene where you have discovered something about your “enemy”, but he doesn’t know you know it until the end of the scene.  You might choose a drop shot as your way of delivering the “Oh, and by the way, I know this about you” line, or you might play it as an overhead smash exit line.

If the smash seems to be the obvious choice, that’s exactly why you should still try the drop shot.  When the unexpected happens on stage and it works, you have some exciting theater going on.  Don’t assume that you know what works until you’ve tried it.

Who’s getting the points in the battle you are waging in a scene?  Or in the entire play, for that matter?  The score matters in theater, as much as it does in sports.  The audience doesn’t have a scoreboard to follow, but that doesn’t mean you aren’t scoring points, or being scored against.

You’ve got to be aware of when you are attacking and when you are retreating.  When you feel stymied or trapped, and when you feel sure you are about to win.  When you’ve scored points and when points are scored against you.

Why do you need to know this?  Well, I think I’ll save that for next time . . .

If you have enough at stake, it’s always going to be a fight.  (If you don’t have enough at stake, you don’t have a play worth performing.)

“Fight” is the operative word.

Conflict is not verbal debate.  It is emotional tug of war.  It is you trying to get what you want in any given moment, what will make you happy.  Sometimes you get it, and sometimes you don’t.  Sometimes you think you’re getting it, only to have the other side give a big yank, tumbling you to the ground.

The person you are in conflict with may simply not want to give you what you want.  Your boss may not want to give you a raise; your distant father may withhold the love you desperately need.

Or the conflict may revolve around conflicting desires, like whether to cremate mom or bury her at sea.  You may want us to move across country so you can accept a transfer, I may want us to stay here so I can care for my aging parents.

Or the conflict may revolve around us wanting the same thing:  that last piece of cake; the Ming vase; the same man.

It’s important that you identify what it is that you are fighting for so that you can go to war for it.  And as in all wars (the play as a whole), there are battles (scenes).  You don’t have to win all the battles to win the war.  You just have to win the last battle.  So sometimes you’re pushing forward and occupying enemy territory.  And sometimes you’re retreating.

It is the swing from “Now I have the upperhand” to “Oops, I didn’t see that coming, what the heck am I gonna do now?” that makes plays and movies thrilling to watch.  If you do nothing but win in every circumstance that you encounter, we’ll lose interest.  However, if you face challenges and we aren’t sure how you’ll overcome them, we’ll pay attention.  It’s Boy Meets Girl, Boy Gets Girl, Boy Loses Girl that we want to see.  If the course of true love runs smooth, then who cares?

Think of The Odyssey.  Yes, Odysseus overcomes every challenge and difficulty that comes his way and finally reaches home again, but each time a challenge arises, we’re not at all sure what’s going to happen or how he’ll succeed this time.

Good storytelling bounces back and forth between success and failure for its protagonist.  If a play is a “war”, there are battles and retreats; skirmishes and bloodbaths; reconnoitering and entrenchments; strategy sessions and re-evaluations.  The flux between these elements builds and releases tensions.  Quiet scenes allow the audience to rest and recover between dramatic moments.

The playwright is responsible for creating storytelling that fluctuates in terms of “where the power is” – that is, who is winning and who is losing at any given moment.  But it is your job, as the actor in the play, to recognize the fluxes and to honor and highlight them appropriately.

How does conflict work, from an actor’s point of view?

I want something.  I want that raise.  And I want it badly (remember, we need to raise the stakes as high as possible.)  I want the raise, because I can’t afford a new car without one.  I have a 50 minute commute every day; my car is essential to my life.  It has been in the shop three times in the last two months, and the cost of repairs are draining me.  The older the car gets, the more fuel it seems to burn, and it wasn’t very fuel efficient to start with.  Plus, this is the seventh used car I’ve owned.  Every car I’ve ever had has come to me scratched, stained, and worn.  For once in my life, I want a car I’m not ashamed to take a date out in.  I want a car that I think better represents me to the woman I hope to marry.  And there is a car that I just saw in a commercial, and then the guy down the street got one, and I fell in love with it.  With everything about it.  The exterior lines, the interior features.  And the color.  They are making it in my favorite color.

I need this car desperately.

So where’s the conflict?  It’s all the obstacles, the roadblocks that get in my way and conspire to keep me from my heart’s desire, that little coupe with my name on it.

The first obstacle is my own bank account.  No matter how I try to work the numbers, I can’t find a way to scrape up a deposit that will also give me manageable monthly payments.   I just don’t have the money.

So I try to get a loan from my family members.  They all turn me down, for one reason or another.

I try buying a lottery ticket, but I don’t win.

I look for a part-time job, but either I can’t find one, or the ones I find won’t pay me enough to help me buy the car by the deadline I’ve set for myself.

So I’ve got to ask my boss for a raise, but I’ve never asked for a raise before.  I don’t know how to go about it.  So I ask my friends for advice on what to say.

They tell me, and now I rehearse what to say to my boss.  And I set up a meeting with him.  But I get cold feet and cancel.

My friends encourage me to try again.  So I reschedule the meeting, and this time I show up.  I stammer out the words.  And my boss says no, he doesn’t think I deserve a raise.

Now I’m angry, because he was so dismissive of me.  I go home and create some charts and other evidence showing that I have saved the company more money than I am asking for.  I ask my boss for another meeting and present my argument.  My boss agrees to give me a raise.

In the above scenario, everything in italics are tactics that I use to try to get what I want.  In boldface are the obstacles I run into that make me change my tactics.  Underlined are what happens when something I do is successful (that is, when I get whatever it is I am striving for with the associated tactic.)

So it isn’t just a matter of playing your verbs.  Another part of the equation is the obstacle you run into, the roadblock that makes you change direction, makes you change verbs.

In other words, you don’t change verbs just for the hell of it, for variety.  You change verbs because you are forced to.  In your character’s estimation, whatever he is doing isn’t working to his satisfaction, and so he tries something else.  But the reason he decides it isn’t working has everything to do with the other person and how he feels about what they do and say.

That means that receiving the message – “I’m not giving you what you want, buddy” – is critical.  You can’t change your tactics without recognizing that your scene partner isn’t cooperating.

I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again, because it’s one of the only things that really matters in acting:  Everything you do, and every single word you utter, has a reason for existing.  It is caused by something that happens that you are forced to deal with in that moment.  Nothing is arbitrary in plays (and very rarely in life).  Everything is a reaction to something else.

A character can be in conflict with three different things:

• Himself
• Someone else
• A group

Internal conflict happens all the time.  I want to accept a job promotion that involves a transfer, but that means moving to Los Angeles, and I hate southern California.

I need to tell you that I want a divorce, but I’m scared to.  Or I’m not yet sure I really want one.

I want to go to my high school reunion, but I’m nervous about seeing my high school sweetheart again.

Relationship conflict also happens all the time.  I want to take the promotion, but my wife doesn’t want to leave her family, all of whom live near us on the East Coast.  I am torn between my desire for success and challenge and my love for my wife (internal conflict), but I am also fighting with her about it.  I say living on the West Coast would be better for us as a family; she believes the opposite.

I’m in conflict with my boss, because I think I deserve a raise and he doesn’t.

I’m in conflict with my landlord, who still hasn’t fixed the door to my apartment.

Conflict with groups can run the gamut.  Family, church, state, community, club, business, society, Martians.

I’m a nun, and I’m in conflict with the Catholic Church, because I believe women should be able to be ordained priests.

I’m opposed to a new development project my township has approved.

I’m a whistleblower and I’ve been fired from my job for bringing environmental violations committed by my company to the public’s attention.

Combine all three kinds of conflict, and you start to create very powerful drama.  As a nun, I have an obligation to obey the Church, so I am torn between my devotion to God and my vows and my deep beliefs about the priesthood.  The priest in charge of my diocese is very vocal about his belief in apostolic succession and against ordaining women, and the fact that I am one of the leaders in this movement creates a lot of personal conflict between us, and not just about this one issue.  And, of course, I am in conflict with the Church as a whole, as a “corporate body”.

So examine the play you’re working on to understand the conflicts within it.  Who is on who’s side?  Where do you agree with others, and where do you disagree?  Who is sitting on the fence whose support you might need?  How do you feel about those who are for you are and those who are ag’in you?

Remember that you might both agree and disagree with someone.  You might think your sister needs to solve a problem, but disagree with how she is going about it.

This may seem to go without saying, but actors sometimes forget this.

A good scene has two characters in conflict about something.  About whether or not Mom should be cremated or buried at sea.  About who should get the Renoir knock-off and who gets the Ming vase.  About whether we should order in Chinese or pizza while we argue about it.

Both characters want something, but what they want is in conflict.  That is, if you want to cremate Mom and I think she should be buried at sea, one of us doesn’t get what we want if the other one does.  (Unless we agree to cremate her and spread her ashes at sea.)  If I want both the Renoir and the Ming, and so do you, one of us will be unhappy if we get neither, and both of us will be unhappy if I get the Renoir and you get the Ming.  And if I hate Chinese food and you insist on ordering it, then I’m going to grouse through dinner.

The fact that not getting what we want in a scene is going to make us profoundly unhappy is what helps to heighten the drama (remember those “stakes” we talked about.)  And so we fight for what we want, for what we believe, in this moment, is the thing we need in order to be happy.

It really is that basic.  Our lives are driven by the need to be happy.  Eating the last piece of chocolate cake will make me happy.   Getting a raise will make me happy, because now I’ll be able to buy a new car, one that is reliable, fuel efficient, and beautiful, none of which can be used to describe my current car.  Marrying the man of my dreams will make me happy.  Getting revenge on the co-worker who screwed me out of that promotion will make me happy.

Or so I think.  I might discover that revenge isn’t what I hoped it was.  Or that it backfires on me in some disastrous way.  But at the moment that I am seeking revenge, I am positive that it alone will make me happy.

But in art, as in real life, happiness is rarely handed to us on a silver platter.  As in my “dead mother” scenario, two people often have contradictory desires, and that makes us go to war over what we want.

If there is no conflict, there is nothing to watch.  It’s boring, and we don’t care.  So it is up to you as an actor to find the conflict, and to make the most of it.  The more you fight for what you want, the more we want to watch you do it.